EVEN CARNATIONS & COMMEMORATIONS ARE NOT ALLOWED

TURKEY – On Saturday (22 June 2013) thousands of people peacefully gathered in Istanbul’s Taksim Square to commemorate four people killed during recent anti-government protests. The crowd laid down carnations for the deceased. Some demonstrators tried to give carnations to the security forces, shouting: “Police, don’t betray your people.” But in an announcement, “You are invading public space, disperse!” told the police to the public and later used water cannons to break them up. At first the protesters were scattered by the attack but later they regrouped in side streets and chanted for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to step down. “This is but a start, the battle continues!”, “It is by resisting that we will prevail!” they yelled. Police continued intervention by firing water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets.

Istanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu tried to justify police intervention by saying that demonstrators were disrupting the car traffic at the Taksim Square. “The incident has come to a point far beyond than laying carnations, where the public order was disrupted. The intervention was carried out due to the hindrance of public and normal transportation and the access of taxis and buses,” Mutlu told. The Governor said the police intervention as ‘suitable’.

It is illegal to target gas bomb guns, yet some police use laser pointers

However, last night the Geneva Conventions – ‘medical neutrality’ – was breached once again. The police broke the windows and fired a gas bomb into the infirmary set up at the Mechanical Engineer Chamber’s building where 30 injured people were being treated.

Mechanical Engineer Chamber’s infirmary

There were also demonstrations against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP government throughout the capital city. Once again police intervened with tear gas and water cannons in Ankara. Residents of Dikmen area, a neighbourhood close to the city centre, reported many incidents of police firing water cannons even to those who were on their balconies. Russia Today (RT) journalist Tom Barton was also hit by water cannons while reporting.

Along with Turkey, there were demonstrations in the western German city of Cologne. Tens of thousands took to the streets to publicly criticize Prime Minister Erdoğan. Banners with “Erdogan, the wolf in sheep’s clothing” and “Europe knows what’s what – a fascist is in charge of Ankara” were seen in the demonstration, which Cologne’s police said was “pleasingly peaceful”. The Alevi Community in Germany Organization, submitted their written demands for what should come next in Turkey, saying the premier should resign to allow for elections. Their document also stated that “no new accession chapter should be written in the Turkish negotiations to enter the EU”.

Protests in Cologne

Erdogan has faced fierce international criticism for his government’s crackdown on the protests, but he has defended his administration’s actions as well as the tough police tactics. He also has blamed the protests on unspecified foreign forces, bankers and foreign and Turkish media outlets he says want to harm Turkish interests.

Yesterday, during an address to approximately ten thousand of his backers in the Black Sea coastal city of Samsun, Erdogan declared that Brazil was the target of the same conspirators he claims are trying to destabilize Turkey.

“The same game is now being played over Brazil,” Erdogan said. “The symbols are the same, the posters are the same, Twitter, Facebook are the same, and the international media is the same. They (the protests) are being led from the same centre. They are doing their best to achieve in Brazil what they could not achieve in Turkey. It’s the same game, the same trap, the same aim.”

Although, the protests in Turkey began when a small campaign to save Gezi Park’s 600 trees from being razed in a redevelopment project was met with a brutal police response on May 31.

The violence sparked widespread anger and snowballed into mass demonstrations against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP government, seen as increasingly conservative and authoritarian, before culminating in another crackdown on Gezi Park.

Since the beginning of the protests four people have been killed and nearly 8,000 injured, according to the Turkish Medical Association.